Improve your business efficiency with these two things.
With so much focus being on Cyber Security and how to protect your business (rightfully so), it’s easy to overlook the benefits technology can bring – in particular improving productivity.
One of the most crucial aspects of any business is ensuring that your team has the right resources to do their job efficiently, and in the modern-day business world where we work online for so many different tasks, having quality internet access and Wi-Fi connection is imperative.
So, if you have noticed your team getting frustrated waiting for websites to load, your sales software seems to lag or when running a virtual meeting it is jittery; then most likely your network is suffering from network congestion.
The root cause of this congestion can be a variety of things however, the most common two causes are that your Internet Speed & Wi-Fi connectivity may not be up to par.
How do you assess your company’s Internet & Wi-Fi connectivity? The easiest way is to look at the following points:
When looking at your Wi-Fi solution we recommend
- Calculating the number of devices connected to Wi-Fi – think personal phones, laptops, tablets, printers, EFTPOS machines, phone systems so on.
If there are more than 10 devices then you may need additional Wireless Access point/s (depending on your current system). - How far is your wireless access point from the furthest device, anything more than 10 meters can border on being too far for quality signal.
- Are there any solid obstructions between your Wireless point and user devices (brick walls, plaster walls, metal clad walls so on).
If so, can you relocate your current Wi-Fi to have less obstructions? - Are there any dead spots with your current Wi-Fi? Go into each area of your building and check for slow access to network resources or slow upload/download speeds. Take note of any dead spots/bad signal areas.
- Check that your current Wireless solution supports the modern high speed Wi-Fi standards – 802.11 AX & AC. These allow for faster network connection speeds. If it doesn’t then you need to look at replacing your current system.
- Check if you are using Wi-Fi repeaters instead of cabled Wireless Access Points.
Repeaters are a cheap solution but are often ineffective for business. Wireless Access Points are the best solution.
When looking at your Internet Speed we recommend the following
- If you haven’t already, calculate the number of devices connected to your network.
- Know what software your business uses daily and how intensive it is on internet speed.
- Work out if your company uses lots of download bandwidth with minimal upload, or are you lots of download and upload. This is important because most internet plans support high download speeds and low upload speeds.
- Check your current internet plan, find out what your upload and download speeds are. Test them by using https://www.speedtest.net
- For your internet speed, allow 2–2.5mbps per company device and then allow an extra 30% for personal devices such as mobile phones.
So, now that you have an understanding of your current network how do you fix the problems?
If it is slow internet that is your issue, then you should call your current provider and ask them if they have any higher speed plans available. Often for a few extra bucks per week you will get a significant upgrade in performance.
If your problem is Wi-Fi, then you may need to upgrade your current wireless solution. How cheap and easy this is to do depends on physical size of your business, the type of construction of the building and if you need to run additional network cabling through roof/wall spaces.
The good news is that Runtime IT has you covered.
Get in touch today and we can undertake a full audit, provide you with recommendations and implement a solution that will get your business humming.
